Microsoft's forecast: cloudy — In a talk before Wall Street analysts yesterday, Microsoft's coder-in-chief, Ray Ozzie, described in broad strokes the software giant's plans to build its utility computing business as more and more computing functions and software applications turn …

VMware lands Cisco as investor — Cisco Systems said Friday it will invest $150 million in VMware, joining Intel as a strategic investor. — After the investment Cisco will own 1.6 percent of VMware's outstanding shares. VMware will also consider appointing a Cisco executive to its board in the future.

BBC online video service launches — The BBC's flagship online TV service is being launched, offering viewers the chance to download their favourite programmes from the last seven days. — For director general Mark Thompson, the launch of iPlayer is as big a milestone as the arrival of colour TV.

Think You Might Be Addicted to Email? You're Not Alone — New AOL Survey Reveals that More Americans are Using Portable Devices to Email Around the Clock from Virtually Anywhere - in the Bathroom, While Driving and Even in Church — 83% of Email Users Checking on Vacation; Many Plan Getaways Around Access

The Twitter Lesson: No Business Plans Please — Seeing that Twitter closed a funding round, and spotting the associated incredulity about Evan's company not having a business plan, reminded me of something: Whatever your feelings about Twitter, business plans are overrated, and profits perhaps even more so.

Vista Battery Saver — Project Description — This tinny program will save up to 70% of your battery by disabling those nice, but greedy Vista features. Running in task bar with private workset of 5.5M and 0% CPU it will do all work for you, by enabling and disabling customizable features …

Google 'the most improved brand' — Google is the brand that has gained the most in value over the past year, according a survey of global brands. — The report from Interbrand found that Google's brand value had risen 44% in the past 12 months to $17.8bn (£8.8bn), which put it in 20th place.

TiVo's Catch-22 — TiVo's survival depends on cable. Cable has limited incentives to see it succeed. Does TiVo have a way out? — This week, the company that has amassed such powerful brand equity that it has become a verb ("Did you TiVo The Sopranos finale?") announced that it is working hard …

Fichey - A Pretty Way To Browse Popular Sites — Fichey just launched this afternoon. It is a flash based site that, like StumbleUpon, allows you to browse through popular current websites. But it isn't a bookmarking service - instead it shows sites from a specified date that were popular on Del.icio.us …

Wii + Second Life = New Training Simulator — Nintendo games have made the Wii controller a satisfyingly realistic controller for pretend tennis, golf and baseball. But how about using it to practice doing surgery, applying pesticides or operating a nuclear power plant?

What's Really Going On With Podtech? — There have been a number of reports that silicon valley based Podtech is literally falling apart. I spoke to Podtech CEO John Furrier and asked him how many of the rumors are true. While he certainly fed me a certain amount of spin, the company has at least a few signs of life.

Is this the new iMac keyboard? — See that? That's the rumored, "super slim," brushed aluminum keyboard said to be accompanying Apple's new iMac computer. It certainly appears to share the key design of the MacBook like we heard but seeing "Photoshop" in the exif data doesn't give us a high degree of confidence here.